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Don’t Believe Babcock: William Nylander Will Play Centre for Toronto Maple Leafs

By James Tanner

Apr 21, 2017; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov (92) and Toronto Maple Leafs right wing William Nylander (29) battle for the puck in game five of the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Verizon Center. The Capitals won 2-1 in overtime and lead the series 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 21, 2017; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Capitals center Evgeny Kuznetsov (92) and Toronto Maple Leafs right wing William Nylander (29) battle for the puck in game five of the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Verizon Center. The Capitals won 2-1 in overtime and lead the series 3-2. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Toronto Maple Leafs held their end of the year press conference earlier this week.

The big news was that coach Mike Babcock said that rookie-of-the-year-in-any-other-year William Nylander would not be playing centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs next season.

OK Babcock.  Whatever you say.

If you have a player like Nylander – a proven puck possession player with high-end offensive abilities – why wouldn’t you play him at centre?  Centre is a more valuable position than winger.

As good as Nylander is paired with Auston Matthews, the fact is, loading two players of that talent level on a single line is intentionally diminishing your returns.  Why don’t Crosby and Malkin play on the same line?  Because you can pretty much take any four decent wingers and they become above-average players when paired them.  By separating their two best players, the Penguins end up with six good players, spread over two lines, in stead of three on one line.

The Leafs can do the same thing.  Matthews can play with Hyman and Kapanen, while Nylander can pair with Brown and Marner.

William Nylander Is a Centre

If the Leafs are going to stick him on the wing, I’ll believe it when I see it.  As a rookie, to break him in slowly, I get it.  Not to mention the problems that were bound to come up having two rookie centres, or the fact that there was no opening at the position.  This year, Nylander on the wing made sense.

But next year?  No way.  Why would the Leafs limit the development of their second-best asset? Why would they groom that asset to be less important to the team and less valuable overall.

They wouldn’t.

But what is Mike Babcock supposed to say when that question comes up?

He currently has four centres – Matthews, Tyler Bozak, Nazem Kadri and Brian Boyle.  Ideally, the Leafs will trade Bozak and re-sign Boyle.  But the coach can’t very well give away his future plans in a press conference.

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If he’d said ‘Yes, Nylander is playing centre for sure,’  well that kind of puts Tyler Bozak on notice that he’s out of here.  And Bozak is the longest serving member of the team and deserves more respect than that.

But clearly, he’s got to go.

If the Leafs enter next season with Matthews, Nylander and Kadri down the middle, then they have the best centre  depth in the entire NHL.

That isn’t something a team is willingly going to prevent from happening.

Expect to see Nylander taking faceoffs next year.

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